From May 15 to 16, the China-Zimbabwe Bilateral/Multilateral Relations Seminar organized by the Chinese Embassy and the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) was held in Mutare. The two themes of the seminar are “promoting bilateral trade and economic development” and “strengthening multilateral coordination and cooperation”. Chinese Ambassador Lin Lin, Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, Amb. Bimha, directors and deputy directors from the Foreign Ministry of Zimbabwe as well as diplomats from the Chinese Embassy attended the seminar.

In his speech, Ambassador Lin expressed gratitude to participants of the seminar. He said that China and Zimbabwe enjoy strong political mutual trust, high level of economic cooperation and fast growth of people-to-people exchanges. The two countries had high-level visits frequently, and supported each other in multilateral occasions. Bilateral trade expanded very fast and turned to be fruitful. He also expressed hope to drive forward common goals and enhance cooperation between the two sides.

Amb. Bimha stated that cooperation between the two sides have great potentials and hoped to further enhance bilateral understanding and cooperation through the seminar. He said that President Mugabe paid a state visit to China last year, Zimbabwe and China have coordinated and cooperated well with each other in the international arena, and China has always rendered firm support and assistance to Zimbabwe. All these have testified the all-weather friendship between our two countries. Nowadays, nearly all the major projects in Zimbabwe are built by Chinese companies. The Zimbabwean side hopes that the Chinese friends could continue to increase investment here.

During the seminar, participants discussed sub-themes concerning bilateral trade development, personnel exchange facilitation and international cooperation, etc.